Guessing game over Cochran run

The Senate’s 2014 battle lines are already largely set with the increasingly glaring exception of Mississippi. But Cochran won’t say whether he will run for a seventh term and has indicated it will be months before he decides, stalling potential successors from laying groundwork in the race ahead of an impending spring primary.

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Publicly, the state’s House delegation and officials back home are urging Cochran to run again, playing up his seniority in the Senate along with his collegial demeanor and 40 years of experience in Congress. But if Cochran surprises his state by stepping down, he will set off a round of intense jockeying among Mississippi Republicans privately eyeing the prize of a Senate seat that hasn’t been open since 1978, when Cochran was sworn in after a stint in the House.

Cochran has until the March 1 filing deadline to get into the race, though some D.C. Republicans are urging him to decide much sooner. He insisted to POLITICO right before Congress’s August recess that he still hasn’t decided what he will do and is in no hurry.

“I don’t have a fixed date. But by the end of the year,” Cochran said. “You don’t want to rush into these things.”

Peppered with follow-up questions, the 75-year-old Cochran politely responded with one- or two-word answers. No, he’s not feeling a lot of pressure back home, though he’s asked occasionally in Washington about his plans. He said it’s a big decision to run for another term of six years, “if you live that long,” he cracked.

One thing’s for sure: Cochran is not making things easy for the chairman of the Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, Jerry Moran of Kansas. If Cochran drops a retirement bomb in December it will create a mad scramble for a safe Republican seat that Moran will have to referee. Moran is urging a quick decision — preferably for Cochran to run again — and out of deference for the longtime senator, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman says he hasn’t met with prospective candidates.

“Every indication I have is that he’s going to [run again], but he’s not been able to say that publicly,” Moran said. Asked if he was miffed by the delay, Moran answered that it’s “frustrating in the sense that you always like to know things with certainty.”

Roger Wicker, the other senator from Mississippi, said it looks like Cochran will go for another round. Clues informing Wicker: a presence by Cochran on social media, continued fundraising and his key role in the Senate-passed farm bill this year.

“He shows every sign of preparing and being prepared for another statewide race,” Wicker said. “This is not a senator that’s winding down.”

If he does want another term, Cochran is seen as unbeatable and unlikely to attract any credible foes. Cochran has accrued quiet power as ranking member of the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee and as former Appropriations Committee chairman — positions that are popular back in Mississippi.

One tapped-in Mississippi Republican source said part of the reason behind the delay is the lingering drama of the farm bill that Cochran helped write, expected to be the subject of bicameral negotiations this fall. If a retirement announcement is coming, Cochran wants to save it for after the House and Senate go to conference and the president signs a new farm bill into law.

Cochran has continued fundraising amid the indecision, though doesn’t have a particularly large war chest with nearly $800,000 on hand, less than most other incumbents running for reelection. He raised about $115,000 from April through June. Given his strong statewide name recognition and 67 percent approval rating in recent polls, Cochran probably won’t need much more than the $3 million he spent to coast to reelection in 2008.